Motherhood and Beyond

One day our lawn mower will bite the dust.  Its just not its time…yet.  Let me explain what this mower has been through the past four years…

1. Year One:  You have to check the oil!  Who knew?  Craig did, but we never thought about actually doing it.  It recovered after we polluted the neighborhood with the fumes.
2. Year Two:  Spark Plug?  Who knew you had to change the spark plug?  It also recovered after a trip to McGinley’s.
3. Year Three:  I don’t think anything major happened.  Just a trip to get the blade sharpened.
4. Year Four:  All I can say is, I am sorry to the mower.  It has been through it.  Starts out, I ran over the gas can.  Then the muffler fell off…quick fix by going back to Blount Co-Op.  Then this weekend happened…As you know, we bought an acre lot for the future home of the Thomas family.  It was time to go back and cut the grass and clean up the tree that Craig had taken down.  I will admit, the following is MY fault.  I will take the blame.  Craig asked me to cut close to the tree so he could finish cutting it up.  As I was doing that, I ran over something.  No, not just a stick, but a CHUNK of wood.  The rubber guard now has a nice hole in it.  The wood went flying in all directions.  (I was lucky I was not hit).  It made the loudest noise possible.  So, there I sit in the “what have I don’t mode”.  Craig came over and looked, it started up.  But I saw something that did not look quite right.  It was a piece of metal underneath that was now in two pieces.  I knew this should not look like this.  So we turned the mower over to take a look and realized that it was okay.  The blade and shaft still in good shape.  But guess what…the mower flooded!  So after many attempts to crank…nothing.  Craig had to go back home, get the spark plug tool (we learned about spark plugs) to remove the plug and clean it up.  An hour later, it started.  YEAH!  But, what was that awful clanking noise.  This could not be good.  Metal hitting metal?  Yeah, you are right, more damage had been done, but nothing that pair of pliers could not fix.  All in all, the mower still works.  I am okay with that.  I did not want to buy a new one.  But I really don’t think this mower is supposed to cut anything but grass!